Cult Content Creation

Since 2005 Cine-Excess has been developing a prolific reputation for cult content creation relating to theatrical and home entertainment releases. These activities have ranged from sourcing new masters of leading European and American cult classics and framing official policy documents for a range of releases, to providing critically acclaimed documentary extras that explore specific titles in their social and cultural contexts.

All of the documentary projects created by Cine-Excess have either been commissioned as standalone extras on DVD/Blu-ray or screened at leading international film festivals across Europe, North America and the Far East.

Some key examples of Cine-Excess cult content creation in this area include:

Fear Today, Horror Tomorrow: Eli Roth and Cabin Fever (Scandisk Entertainment, 2004). Fear Today, Horror Tomorrow: Eli Roth and Cabin Fever considered Eli Roth’s debut film as spearheading a new wave of post-9/11 American horror cinema. The documentary also examined the link between Roth’s text and Robin Wood’s work on the subversive qualities contained within the 1970s American horror canon.

Resurrecting Horror: Inside the Mind of Brian Yuzna (Mosaic Entertainment, 2005).Resurrecting Horror: Inside the Mind of Brian Yuzna was commissioned to coincide with the release of Yuzna’s ‘monster dog’ movie Rottweiler, and offered a psychoanalytic account of both the film and the director’s wider output, as well as considering broader issues of race representations within contemporary cult and horror cinema.

Menstrual Monsters: The Ginger Snaps Trilogy and its Audience (Mosaic Entertainment, 2005)Menstrual Monsters: The Ginger Snaps Trilogy and its Audience considered issues of gender and sexuality within contemporary Canadian cult film as well as its reception by differing female user-groups. The documentary contained an all-female audience research project, which became the basis for a wider, international study on gender and film fandom, compiled in conjunction with reception specialists at Aberystwyth University. (The findings of this research project were then published in the journal Film International).

Fear at 400 Degrees: The Cine-Excess of Suspiria (Nouveaux Pictures, 2010)Fear at 400 Degrees: The Cine-Excess of Suspiria was commissioned as the main documentary extra for the Nouveaux Pictures / Cine-Excess Blu-ray release of Dario Argento’s masterpiece. It explored both the creative and controversial aspects of Suspiria, by considering how debates around the film’s experimental film style were complicated by the gender representations of both the film and the wider Italian cult system from which it emerged. As well as completing the documentary for the Blu-ray release, Cine-Excess staff also assisted in the UK high definition restoration of the title, which led critics to claim that “Suspiria has never looked better. It has never sounded as good, either.” (John Millar, Film Critic, Sunday Mail), whilst also hailing it as “a stunning makeover for one of the greatest horror films ever made.” (David Edwards, Daily Mirror).

The Long Road Back From Hell: Reclaiming Cannibal Holocaust (Shameless Films, 2011)The Long Road Back From Hell: Reclaiming Cannibal Holocaust was commissioned by Shameless Films as a direct result of the success of the 2010 Cine-Excess Suspiria release, and was included on their recent Blu-ray release of Cannibal Holocaust. Cine-Excess staff worked with both director Ruggero Deodato and colleagues from Shameless Film for over a year on the release, preparing the submission documentation of the this contentious title for the BBFC, as well as creating a 42 minute documentary which assessed its status as the key influence behind the tradition of ‘found footage horror’. As well as addressing the film’s use of realist documentary tactics, it also considered the film in light of the terrorist traumas that emerged in Italy’s so-called ‘Years of Lead’.